


The Leeward Side

by honey_wheeler



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-06
Updated: 2016-06-06
Packaged: 2018-07-12 15:36:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7111954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honey_wheeler/pseuds/honey_wheeler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For two weeks she’s imagined how it would be when he awoke. It had been easier than giving in to her fears that he wouldn’t wake at all. So instead Sansa had cooled his brow, coaxed medicines and broth into his mouth, bathed his nude body with cold cloths over and over, and she'd thought of how he might finally wake. With a start, perhaps, a gasp and a shudder. Or with a groan and a plea for water. Perhaps in panicked confusion.</p>
<p>He does none of those things; Jon Snow wakes from his fever with a soft sigh and her name on his lips.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Leeward Side

For two weeks she’s imagined how it would be when he awoke. It had been easier than giving in to her fears that he wouldn’t wake at all. So instead Sansa had cooled his brow, coaxed medicines and broth into his mouth, bathed his nude body with cold cloths over and over, and she'd thought of how he might finally wake. With a start, perhaps, a gasp and a shudder. Or with a groan and a plea for water. Perhaps in panicked confusion.

He does none of those things; Jon Snow wakes from his fever with a soft sigh and her name on his lips.

“I thought I’d dreamed you here,” he says when she stands from where she’d been sitting, watching him and making a right mess of her embroidery. Sansa smiles at him, her hand going instinctively to his forehead. It’s clammy but cool, with no sign of the fever that’s ravaged his body for nigh two weeks. Sansa hadn’t thought any two weeks could seem so long. She’d been apart from him for so long, and they’d never been close before that; how could he have become so important to her without her noticing?

“Surely if you were to dream, you’d dream of someone better than me,” she says, reluctant to pull her hand away. His hair is damp with sweat, though she’d washed it as best she could just last night; his dark curls stick and cling to his forehead and cheeks. It’s gotten so long. Perhaps now that he’s awake, he’ll let her trim it for him.

“I’d rather dream of you,” he says, then groans as he tries to move, as if he hadn’t just said something breathtaking and strange and almost wonderful. Gods, where are these feelings coming from? she wonders. Perhaps it is only relief, the cessation of fear leaving her open to something more vulnerable. “How long has it been? I only remember having a terrible headache after helping Rickon hear petitions.”

“Almost two weeks.”

“That long! Gods. And you were here the whole time? I didn’t dream that?”

“No,” Sansa says, her voice soft and low. “No, you didn’t dream that.”

She would say more, but then he sits forward, the bedlinens slipping down to pool over his bare thighs, and any words Sansa might say dry up in the back of her throat.

It’s astonishing, how different it is to look upon his nude body now that he’s awake and she no longer has the detachment of a nurse caring for a patient. He’s a marvel, his shoulders broad, his waist and hips narrow, the cartography of smooth muscles stretching between then. His thighs look terribly strong, even partly concealed by the linens atop them, and his arse…

When she was a girl, Sansa had her share of feelings about the boys of her acquaintance, girlish flutters low in her belly at a handsome face and pleasing manner. Those had gone after her father died, and they’d stayed away since then; men were something to be feared, she’d learned, rather than admired. Many a late night, she and Myranda had gossiped in hushed tones in her room, Sansa nodding as if she understood while Myranda spoke scandalously of men she bedded and things she wanted that were foreign to Sansa.

They’re not foreign anymore.

“Sansa?”

He must have been speaking to her. She heard not a word, so occupied was she with ogling his nude body. Gods. He may be her brother no longer, but he once was. How could she be so perverted?

He turns to see her staring at him, mouth agape. He must realize his nudity, because he turns scarlet and clutches the linens missishly around his waist.

“Gods, I’m sorry, I wasn’t even thinking. You must… Gods, Sansa, I’m such an idiot, I-”

Sansa’s own cheeks burn as bright as Jon’s, she can tell just by their heat. “I’ve certainly seen all that and more over the last two weeks,” she says, hoping to put him at ease but only succeeding in making him flush even more deeply. “I’ll…I’ll leave you to… To…” Desperately, Sansa casts about for some phrase that won’t only draw more attention to their awkward situation, only to fail. “I’ll leave you,” she finishes lamely. Inwardly, Sansa rolls her eyes at herself. She could not possibly have managed this more poorly, and things are always so strained between them. With a sigh, she moves to the door of the room, careful to keep her gaze away from Jon, even though she can see from the corner of her eye that he’s swaddled to his chin in the linens now. 

“Sansa,” he says, just as she’s grasped the door handle. She glances over her shoulder at him. Even as swathed in fabric as a Septa, he still sends a prickle zipping up her spine and an unexpected heat pooling in her belly.

“Yes?”

“I…” She can see him searching for words, as she herself had done only moments ago. There’s something endearing in it, something soft and precious. “Thank you.”

Sansa only smiles at him before stealing through his doorway. Not an hour ago, she was glad to the point of delirium at his recovery. Now she finds herself disappointed that he’ll not need her ministrations tonight. How strange her world has become.


End file.
